It has long been known to provide hand holdable containers for fire-extinguishing liquids adapted to be broken for dispensing the contents, as in U.S. Pat. No. 2,865,458 to Simoncini of Dec. 23, 1958, U.S. Pat. No. 2,772,744 to Beadet of Dec. 4, 1956, or to be released at predetermined temperatures, as in U.S. Pat. No. 2,857,971 to Ferris of Oct. 28, 1958. Collapsible tubes have also been proposed for dispensing fire extinguishing liquid, as in U.S. Pat. No. 1,850,008 to Gore of Mar. 15, 1932.
Since liquid may tend to spread a fire of certain types, rather than to extinguish the flames, powder type extinguishers are often found more useful and efficient, such extinguishers being exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 2,731,093 to Gordon of Jan. 17, 1956. In the Gordon device the container is about three-quarters full of powder, the dispensing passage is relatively narrow in diameter, e.g., no more than about 5/32 inch, and dispensing is by manual squeezing of the flexible walled container in the hourglass shaped midriff or central portion, the squeezing being toward the central longitudinal axis.
There are on the market fire extinguishers for dispensing powdered fire extinguishants comprising a plastic container having a bellows section to effect a pumping action. However, the embodiments of such fire extinguishers known to applicants are not effective in extinguishing many common household fires due to, among other reasons, the fact that they have very narrow slotted discharge openings, and relatively stiff bellows sections which can be compressed only to the extent that the ratio of compressed bellows length to expanded bellows length is about 1 to 2. These devices of the prior art are illustrated in FIGS. 13-16 and described in some detail inasmuch as no patents describing them have been located.
It is therefore a primary object of this invention to provide an improved dry powder dispenser which is hand-held and hand-operated and capable of being pumped to discharge a cloudlike burst of the powder onto a predetermined area. Another object of this invention is to provide a novel fire extinguisher capable, through hand pumping, of discharging fire extinguishing effective amounts of a dry extinguishant in repeated cloud-like bursts. Yet a further object of this invention is to provide a fire extinguisher of the type described which is easily operated, relatively inexpensive to construct and particularly suitable for placement in many different locations within the home. Other objects of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part be apparent hereinafter.